Jill Rees: Welcome Press

It’s been a bad week for Barack Obama and the Nigerian football team alike. On Saturday Nigeria lost to Ivory Coast and only hope remains for the Mali match. Barack Obama lost out to Hilary in Nevada, having largely expected to win. In a hotly contested run to be the candidate for the Presidency, Hillary’s husband the former President has had strong words to say to ward off Mr Obama. Barack has taken umbrage at these aggressive tactics as Mr Clinton tries to defend his wife, and says he sometimes doesn’t know which Clinton he is fighting!It’s not so much that Barack’s father is Kenyan or that he is a black man in a country where black achievement has always been discouraged or unrecognised, as that Barack seems to have a greater grasp of the state of international affairs than the others. Nevertheless, just as Premiership teams throughout Europe and the UK are bemoaning the loss of 40 of their best players to the African national sides, so liberal voters in the US are divided about whether to support the woman or the black candidate. Like London buses, you wait for ages for a chance to vote for progressive politics, then two come along at once.

It is said that, after 9/11, Americans were surprised to discover that people in the wider world did not all hold the US in the high affection they hitherto believed. This level of isolationism is really mind-bogglingly hard to grasp for other countries, who have been struggling with levelling the image of the ‘democratic land of Freedom’ with its record of attacks on a succession of under-developed countries since Vietnam. Embargoes on Cuba and pre-war Iraq, seemingly aimed at causing suffering to the citizens by blocking supplies of food and medical supplies, as well as the refusal to acknowledge democratically elected governments such as the Palestinian government, the record in South America and the blemished elections of 2000, all seem to point to a retrogressive and inward looking nation.

The power behind the Presidency seems to be global businesses and oil companies, chemical producers and weapons manufacturers. The USA is seen as the major obstacle to dealing with climate change, as it continues to refuse to ratify the Kyoto protocol, presumably because no President has the power to oppose the oil companies.

With each strategic invasion or interference with a foreign government, the unspoken fear of American intervention systematically increases its influence in developing nations, as we have seen over matters such as introducing GM crops in Mali.

‘GM crops would re-colonise us,’ says Sereba Kone, president of the cotton growers in Bohi. Some Africa coalition members admit that theirs is a “David and Goliath” struggle, which they are not likely to win. (BBC 2007)

At the same time as allegedly investing to help increase productivity for cotton growers in Mali, the US government is paying large subsidies to its own cotton farmers, effectively squeezing Mali out of the global market and leaving it with a surplus. For most people in the world, this appears yet again as simply a means to take control of a developing nation. The intimation from conflicts such as Iraq is that any nation who objects too strongly to US policy or tries to stand alone will also come into the line of fire. This was perhaps behind Tony Blair’s reluctant decision to enter into the war in Iraq. As long as the UK was alongside the US, they could keep an eye on the US troops and restrain them from their worst excesses. There is a saying from the front lines of World War II:

‘When England fires, Germany ducks; when Germany fires, England ducks; when America fires, everyone ducks!’

Apart from the risk of friendly fire, the British Army are experts at citizen support in conflict areas, having practised for several decades in Northern Ireland. British troops are specially trained in negotiating skills and armed policing in urban areas, where the aim is to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local population. In Iraq, as in Ireland, these attempts to gain the public’s confidence has failed, and the reason is easy to understand: an invading army is unlikely to be welcome for long, however pleasant the lads appear to be.

Now, it appears, the US is at risk of losing the self-styled ‘war on terror’. George is on his way out, leaving the war unfinished; Tony has already gone. Newspapers in the US* are saying that Britain presents a greater security threat to the United States than either Iran or Iraq, displaying a singular lack of gratitude. To help our ‘special’ allies, Britain has defied popular opinion and numerous anti war protests, ruined its reputation abroad, and effectively seen the downfall of the previously universally popular Blair government. At the same time, a new report shows that NATO is now considering the ‘nuclear option’ to combat terrorism. It seems incredible that, with the effects of radioactive pollution from Chernobyl still in the environment, anyone could believe that a nuclear explosion can somehow be contained.

Putting these two developments together, it appears even the UK should be wary. Whether careless words or a deliberate threat to destabilise the European Union, which is again considering a constitution which will increase its military influence, this recent polemic puts the UK with Iran and others in feeling nervous of the world’s repetitive paranoia about terrorism being organised on a national scale. As people constantly tell my American friends,

‘We like you, but we don’t agree with your president.’

Well soon he’ll be gone. Will the new incumbent fulfil our hopes and dreams? Hilary, with her record of the alleged ‘Whitewater’ land purchasing scam, still seems to be a member of the political classes. Her only record with major league politics is the failed 1994 health care proposal, which she is still inclined to follow through. Barack in contrast seems like an untainted, highly intelligent, educated, aware and relatively normal proposition. Our hopes, from the UK and Nigeria alike, are that the US under the new administration researches more deeply the causes and protagonists behind modern terrorism, calms the fears it has been relentlessly creating throughout the world, and establishes sound dialogic relationships on the international scene.

We would like to see international agreements and treaties over climate change and sustainable development to be ratified, the USA to join the rest of the world in taking global and holistic responsibility for all of our future, and a deeper trust of United Nations organisations. Our problems are now global, and require global and not national solutions. When Barack Obama says it is a time for hope, he isn’t speaking only to America. He already has an international voice.

* from US newspaper the New Republic

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